


The tower of a Goddess that slumbered through war

by Kuro_Ko



Series: Maybe, in a different life [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27526888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuro_Ko/pseuds/Kuro_Ko
Summary: Mercedes on top of the tower was the image of the goddess and the sadness that stained her eyes like the dark colors in the high windows of the cathedral in Fhirdiad wasn't enough for her to take away the hand she had already extended for them all.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Mercedes von Martritz
Series: Maybe, in a different life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011939
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	The tower of a Goddess that slumbered through war

When the war ravaged the land, a hungry animal that had been awakened from its long, dreamless slumber, it seemed chaotic and merciless. A disarray of acts and consequences, of facts that overlapped and potentiated each other. The rising tide of violence that had been asleep, the soaring wind that bellowed from the very bottom of every heart in the continent, yelling in a silent voice their own truths and their alliances.

It had seemed like a hungry animal with no mind of its own that fought to survive and prevail after a long dreamless slumber.

On top of a tower that had given her joy and brought her comfort, Mercedes looked for solace that stone and time would never offer her.

Not ever again.

In her heart, she knew that the polished surface of the tower that had been chipped away by war had been special due to the sentiment each faithful worker and carver had poured into it rather than the material itself. She knew, in her heart, that the comfort of the goddess wasn't for her to find there.

It wasn't for her to find maybe ever again.

On top of a tower that had brought her joy and hope, Mercedes watched how the war had eaten everything away, shaping and changing until every city, every town, every person was unrecognizable. Until their very essence was to never be the same, and for the goddess to maybe not to recognize the children she had mothered a thousand years ago when the land had been watered with pleas instead of curses.

Her hands, once warm, were crossed by the scars of the magic that called for healing but broke her own skin and tore her muscles when she pushed just too hard. When she tried mending the life of somebody else at the cost of her own. Her hands, once warm, would give drops of her own blood in exchange for years more for those who called for her care and her healing magic that was the beginning for so many and maybe the end for her.

It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter.

Mercedes stood there alone, the world at her feet and a chorus of countless voices called her name from a place she couldn't visit but could see when she closed her eyes.

Mercedes stood there alone, the world a maelstrom of words that asked something of her, of people that wanted something from her. The tower was her home, whether she recognized it or not, the tower was her home.

It was her home and she had been there alone for so many years there was no reason to believe it would ever change.

She was the fair maiden at the top of the high cold stone tower, near the goddess she prayed everyday unaware the goddess slumbered despite the cries of the living that died with her name on their lips. She was the fair maiden at the top of the high cold stone tower, the judgement the soldiers wished to reach and ask for forgiveness for crimes they hadn't committed but felt guilty nonetheless. The judgement of her soft words and her warm magic and her kind eyes.

Mercedes on top of the tower was the image of the goddess and the sadness that stained her eyes like the dark colors in the high windows of the cathedral in Fhirdiad wasn't enough for her to take away the hand she had already extended for them all.

Mercedes stood there alone, and only the wind could caress the loose strands of her hair when the afternoon turned into dusk. The wind that soared through the land indifferent to the devastation that had come to be under the edge of weapons too sharp to be anything else but tools of death. The war that had been pushed forward based on accusations that rolled from lips that knew more that they let on and that spoke half truths for the soldiers to die without even knowing why they had traded their lives for.

Her hands, once warm, were crossed by scars that magic had marked in her skin little by little, centimeter by centimeter. She unclenched her fists and looked at her fingers extended. The slightest of trembles was visible there, the slightest of weakness she was so careful to keep to herself day and night. Her hands were always busy helping somebody else than nobody quite looked at them to notice how the war had slowly diminished her.

No, of course not.

Mercedes was on top of the tower, near the goddess that slumbered and her eyes fogged by sadness were not to be understood or read but to be worshiped and requested favors to. Her smile was her line of defense, her kind affirmations the ones that kept Dimitri reassured of her loyalty and her prayers every day at dawn Lady Rhea's attentive eye out of her.

Many of her former friends had deflected, many of their former allies had run away, had left them behind for the call of the present instead of the bond to their land and their past.

Her fingers, strong and sure, were marked by the toll of magic when it was casted with no regards of self-care or self-preservation. She closed them and her fists were the ones of a fighter rather than a healer. Her hands who had saved countless lives and taken so many more.

The battlefield had taken a hold in her destiny, it had demanded her sacrifice and it was never satisfied by the blood she had spilled on it to quench its thirst. She had tried to please it. She had tried to calm it. She had tried infuriating it. She had tried ignoring it.

She had tried to survive.

She had tried to survive.

She was never meant to thrive in it, no matter how many times she was thrown into it, she was made to suffer every second, she was to go through the battlefield as a deadly beautiful angel. Ethereal in her nature, swift when taking what wasn't hers to take. Swift when ending what she hadn't been able to save. She was the angel of death the goddess had personally imbued with her power and she had killed and saved lives guided by colors and pleas, guided by foe and friend, guided by the muffle cries of those whose colors were visible no more mixed in mud and blood.

Mercedes, on top of the tower, remembered their voices and their faces and her heart wept for them, no matter where they had come from or how they had tried to harm her before lighting itself had struck them down when she called for it. She had elevated a plea for them every time, and now her soul doubted her pleas would ever be enough to calm her own raging heart when she thought of those who had perished looking at her, their last moment imprinted in her mind and maybe her figure the light that preceded the night of death no mortal was supposed to avoid or look into.

Her hands trembled, and on top of the tower in the Fhirdiad cathedral she could let them tremble and cry because there was no one there to see her tears and watch her shoulders collapse defeated.

The wind played with her clothes and called her name with the voice of the one she had loved the most.

They had left her behind, following the call of a war she didn't want to fight and yet had been fighting since the beginning. They had left her behind and she had never called their name since they left. The pain in her chest told a story of dejection, of fear and loneliness, of sorrow and grief.

Mercedes never felt spite or anger at them.

She couldn't hate the ones that had decided for themselves a better life, or what they thought it would be a better life.

She couldn't blame them when they had taken their weapons and had left, never looking behind, never cursing or crying or looking back.

She never said their names out loud, she wouldn't do it in that moment either. It would be like calling the ghosts of her friends and lover again to her presence. She wouldn't be able to bear it, she wasn't that strong.

She had never been that strong.

She didn't have the will needed to go back to look for them or the spiteful nature to hate them for not taking her side. She wasn't like that, Mercedes wished her soul could be something more than kind and open.

Mercedes wished for her heart to be as strong as her magic was.

The sky in Fhirdiad would never answer her plea, however, for the goddess slumbered and the war had yet to wake her up.

Mercedes wished for the time to go back to the point where they had met and life had seemed easier and fate kinder. She wished for her brother to be with her, for her lover to be with her, for her friends to be with her.

She wished for those she had killed to go back to a past where they hadn't yet crossed paths with her.

She wished for her heart to be as strong as her magic and for her faith to be as strong as her heart. She wished to be back, to the academy days when she was still complete and her hands were warm and her friends were with her. She wished for life to be something that wasn't and that would never again be.

Mercedes wished for the goddess to forgive them despite how much they had changed and hurt,despite how war had changed them and hurt them. She closed her eyes. 

In the wind she heard the voice of the one she had loved the most and that had left her behind.

The wind, as a mock, caressed her cheeks and played with her hair before it was gone. Its touch was just the same as the one she used to love so many moons ago.

The afternoon, now dusk, was golden and orange and the night would bring a chill that was like anything else in Fhirdiad, like anything its citizens had experimented before.

On top of the tower, alone, Mercedes crumbled apart. Hidden from everybody else, alone with her sadness, her thoughts, her scars of magic that was supposed to heal and that had tore her apart, she wept.

She wept.

And her tears were the last petals of a withering flower that had blossomed despite the odds just to be squandered, left behind by everybody she cared about. A winter flower that had been resilient and strong.

That had been strong.

When spring was to come, would she blossom again?

Mercedes believed she wasn't to see another year, the war marching upon them. The final battle would call sooner than they expected with the bright, metallic sound of swords clashing and shields splintering. The final battle upon them, at the doors of their own home.

The cries of men and monsters would ring alike and their voices would be carried by the wind.

The cries of men and monsters would ring alike and as every battle before, the wind would take even that away to leave them to stand in silence with the ghosts of their beloved and a past that was never to come back.

Mercedes believed she was to be there to see the end of the war and no more. Her resolution had brought her strength but not joy. Her hands, marked by magic too powerful to be contained, shone with the flames of the faith and the strength she denied herself to have.

She was on top of the tower near the goddess and, if the goddess willed it, she would soon be with her far from this land where she had blossomed too late to be anything else but the lonely witness of the end of a season she wished she would have enjoyed just a second longer.

Her hands trembled, her shoulders crumbled, her eyes stained with the sadness no one could do anything but watch.

Mercedes was on top of the tower, and the goddess would wake up but would not answer her pleas, for her powers were not enough to save those who called for her name, no matter how much she tried. No matter how strong her magic was and how faithful her prayers were.

The wind, in the night, called her with the voice of the one she had loved and that had left her, as everybody else, behind.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I saw [THIS AMAZING BEAUTIFUL ART BY THE WONDERFUL JESS](https://twitter.com/chuminder/status/1308920474550915073) and my mind went on full angst.
> 
> I am working on a sequel to finish up this series that was never something I planned but happened.
> 
> If you want you can follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kurokr_). It's a very queer twitter.
> 
> Be safe!


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